October 5, 2016

Words matter said the Democrat Party’s candidate at the first television debate. She said that because her opponent seems to think words only matter when can think of them. Well yes words matter and the people who make words matter the most are poets and it has been a thrill to bring 30 new poems from 30 poets as a way to intervene with language in this terribly contentious election campaign.

I thank Terrius Harris, a wonderful student at Ole Miss who happens to be an intern for Black Earth Institute who had to post each of the poems and Michael McDermott, co-founder of Black Earth Institute for asking me to do this project again and he brought a great poem from Patricia Monaghan, the late co-founder of Black Earth Institute, who was a great advocate of connecting poetry, political activism and advocacy. BEI truly supports poets and poetry.

Patricia Spears Jones

Afterword by Michael McDermott

Patricia Spears Jones curated another 30 Days. This time she gathered wonderful poets inspired, frightened or angry about the events in the country and beyond. We had 2400 views on poems with 1001 visitors. This is the second 30 Days with the first preceding the 2012 election with thousands of views there. Patricia took this on and gathered the poets keeping to the daily schedule demands. Her efforts keep poetry timely and pointed. Her work is important and is one way the Black Earth Institute fulfills its mission of addressing spirit, earth and social justice. Thanks Patricia.

Richard Cambridge is a Fellow Emeritus of the Black Earth Institute. He curates the Poets’ Theatre at the Arts at the Armory in Somerville, Massachusetts. A poet, novelist, and performance artist, his one man show, The Cigarette Papers—A Journey from Addiction, was hailed by the Boston Globe as a “tour de force.”

Ann Fisher-Wirth’s fourth book of poems is Dream Cabinet (Wings Press 2012). Her other books of poems are Carta Marina, Blue Window, and Five Terraces. With Laura-Gray Street, she coedited the groundbreaking Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity UP, 2013, 2014). She has been awarded residencies at The Mesa Refuge; Djerassi Resident Artists Program; Hedgebrook; and CAMAC/Centre d’Art, Marnay, France. Her current project is a collaborative poetry/photography manuscript called Mississippi with the acclaimed photographer Maude Schuyler Clay, which Wings Press will publish in 2017. Photographs and letterpress poems from this project are currently on exhibit throughout Mississippi. Ann is a Fellow 2015-2018 of the Black Earth Institute and the recipient of two senior Fulbrights (Switzerland, Sweden). She teaches and directs the Environmental Studies program at the University of Mississippi.

Tammy Gomez is an activist, performance artist, and writer whose work is published in collections including Women in Nature (2014), and Entre Guadalupe y Malinche: Tejanas in Literature and Art (UT Press, 2016). She is profiled in Las Tejanas: 300 Years of History (UT Press, 2003), and was honored by Goucher College (Maryland) with the “Alumnae/i Award for Excellence in Public Service” in 2010. She is a fellow of the Black Earth Institute

Amanda Deutch’s poems have been published widely in journals online and in print. Recent publications include: The Rumpus, 92Y Words We Live In, Revolver, Denver Quarterly, Manhattanville Review, and Barrow Street. Deutch is the author of six chapbooks, including Pull Yourself Together (dancing girl press, 2016) and Fit to Print (Harsimus Press, 2015) a chapbook anthology of 3 artists (Barbara Henry, Rosaire Appel, Amanda Deutch) who use The New York Times as inspiration. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she has been awarded grants, fellowships and residencies from Footpaths to Creativity (Flores, Azores), Then Betsy Writer’s Room (Miami, Florida), Poets & Writers and NYFA. Deutch lives in Brooklyn, where she curates Parachute Literary Arts site-specific events and libraries. For more information about her curatorial & community arts work, check out www.ParachuteArts.org.

Fay Chiang is a poet and visual who believes culture is a spiritual and psychological weapon used for the empowerment of people and communities.Working at Project Reach, she is also a member of Zero Capital and the Orchard Street Advocacy Wellness Center. Battling her tenth bout of breast cancer, she is working on her memoir.Seven Continents Nine Lives (Bowery Books) is her most recent collection of poetry. And she is the mother of the inimitable Xian.